Boyz II Men delivered a love letter to their fans on Tuesday night with the Cincinnati Pops. And they came bearing roses.

The '90s R&B vocal group – Wanya Morris, Nathan Morris and Shawn Stockman – brought out bouquets of roses, which they handed out individually to the ladies who thronged to the front of Music Hall's stage. The moment was sung, of course, to "I'll Make Love to You," a peak of the lovefest that included some of their best-known ballads.

The sold-out crowd loved them right back, shrieking as they sauntered out in their gentlemanly dark suits and sunglasses, and as they reached to the heights in gospel-style vocal cadenzas.

Boyz II Men rehearses with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra at Music Hall, prior to their evening show. Sarah Hicks conducts.
The Enquirer/Liz Dufour

Two decades since they began singing together at the Philadelphia High School for Creative & Performing Arts, the three remaining members of the band are no longer exactly Boyz. But they still ooze charisma as they communicate their PG-rated lyrics in gloriously smooth harmonies. It's small wonder that they reign as the best-selling R&B group of all time, with 60 million albums sold.

"We're like the Three Tenors," said Stockman, who explained that they trained in the classics – Bach, Brahms, Vivaldi, Mozart – "so this is very much at home for us."

Even though they are not all tenors, they are individually talented. Each soared into the vocal stratosphere on one of their biggest hits, "On Bended Knee." For added drama, Wanya Morris, who might be described as the "Pavarotti" of the group, dropped to his knee and delivered an emotional display of vocal fireworks. Cue more shrieks.

It was a fun, nostalgic evening, but the singers spoke little between numbers. They crooned through "Four Seasons of Loneliness," "Girl in the Life Magazine," "Water Runs Dry" and others without a break, as various parts of the 3,400-seat hall swayed, clapped and waved in time to the music.

In the second half, the Men left their stand mikes and strolled the stage, delivering energetically in "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye," and "Open Arms." In "Easy," Nathan Morris took to the piano bench, while fans swooned.

If they knew how to win a girl's heart with roses, they also knew how to win over her mother. "A Song for Mama" was dedicated to "the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth."

There was no "Motownphilly," though. The Boyz came to the end of their show with their towering hit, "End of the Road" (which replaced Diana Ross' and Lionel Richie's version in 1991).

An amplified Cincinnati Pops orchestra, led by Sarah Hicks, backed them up in an easy-listening soundtrack, in arrangements that never rose to the standard of the Pops, or of the Boyz. And despite a maze of soundboards and mixers that came with the show, the balance was never quite right, either. The first few tunes were way too boomy, and the singers could barely be heard.

There was another milestone to the Pops' final show of the Music Hall season. Making her debut, Hicks, who is principal pops conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, was the first woman to ever conduct the Pops. But with the limp orchestral arrangements she was given, let's hope she returns with something to showcase what she can do.